Tapioca
Indie Film Premieres in Park City
Royal families of acting like the Booths, Baldwins, and Barrymores have nothing on the Houlihans. Former Chicago Sun-Times features columnist, veteran stage and screen actor and theatre producer Mike Houlihan recruited his entire family to join him in his debut feature as writer, producer, and star of the comedy “Tapioca.”
Twin son Paddy Houlihan directed the film and his brother Bill Houlihan is executive producer of Tapioca. Both sons also have featured roles in the film as actors. Mary Carney, Mike’s wife and the twins’ mother, stars in the film as Clotilde, a blessed bag lady.
Mike and Mary met onstage in Shakespeare’s ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL in the late seventies. Mary Carney went on to star in the daytime soap opera “Ryan’s Hope” as well as performing in the classics all over the country and in England. The Houlihan brothers officially began their acting careers with their father on the stage of the Beverly Art Center in Chicago in 2004 when they mounted “Tapioca” as a comedy experiment. But Mike says, “They’ve been clowns since they day they were born!”
Houlihan also recruited an extended family of actors and comics to join the cast. “Most of my pals are in the film.” Tapioca features Broadway legend Ben Vereen, Saturday Night Live alum Tim Kazurinsky, Greg Hollimon from “Strangers With Candy,” as well as David Pasquesi and a host of Second City veterans.
Tapioca premiered at the Park City Film Music Festival in Park City, Utah on January 19, 2008. It’s a road trip the men in the family will never forget. Paddy says, “We were in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival so we schooled all the big shot Hollywood types in the “Chicago way!”
While most of the films at Sundance had multi-million dollar budgets, Tapioca came in at a fraction of that. Tapioca features an original score by Chicago jazz composer Ryan Cohan and contributions from Gospel legends like Otis Clay and Lena McLin. The Park City Film Music Festival is devoted to the impact of music in film.
Tapioca also features cartoons by the Chicago Sun-Times Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist Jack Higgins.
The Houlihans have screened Tapioca all over the film festival circuit including The Texas Black Film Festival, First Take Film Festival, The Geneva Film Festival, and The Other Venice Film Festival. Tapioca had its Chicago premiere at the Gene Siskel Film Center on November 20, 2008. Vanguard Cinema has picked up Tapioca for world wide distribution and DVD release is scheduled for February, 2009. Mike says, “Tapioca is proof that you don’t need a million dollars to make a cool little movie.”